Is it? Is it a requirement for one to get onto a college team? If not, it would help a lot for any school, right? I see a lot of people posting videos on YouTube so college coaches can take a look at them. Let's say you post a video and you look like a really good player and you somehow impress a coach, but you don't really have a usta ranking to show you can bring results. Would that take you out of consideration?

Is it? Is it a requirement for one to get onto a college team? If not, it would help a lot for any school, right? I see a lot of people posting videos on YouTube so college coaches can take a look at them. Let's say you post a video and you look like a really good player and you somehow impress a coach, but you don't really have a usta ranking to show you can bring results. Would that take you out of consideration?

I don't think it's required, but it helps if you are aiming for a good Div. I college.

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It's not required. But your ranking is how coaches notice you and rankings help in comparing you to other players, which can give the coach somewhat of an idea of your level.

Videos are good, but I think solid match results are better in determining what level you are/were at. A coach could see a video and see that someone hits really good shots and has really good form, but how do they know that you aren't going to crumble under pressure or something like that?

So basically, USTA ranking and tournament play really really helps, especially at the D1 level. There are D2 and D3 schools that WILL take you without a USTA ranking though, and even some D1 schools, but if you are looking at playing at a high level school (D1, D2, and D3) then you want to start playing in at least a few tournaments.